What’s happening in the Belle Fourche Middle School with Drug & Alcohol Prevention?... Holly Main is the current prevention teacher and is excited to share what IS HAPPENING! Daily lessons focus on How the Adolescent Brain is growing and developing, how that relates to the different way choices are made and how substances are much more detrimental these young brains than they are to an adult brain. The Too Good For Drugs curriculum has a wide range of lessons to help students with some decision making
strategies, life goal setting, communication skills, appropriate problem solving and coping skills, as well as substance use and how to look for signs of substance abuse. We get to use a variety of ways to help the students learn about the dangers of natural and synthetic substances and how they change the way the brain is able to function. One of the most fun activities is the VAPE ESCAPE Room activity that we set up with help from the YLT (Youth Leadership Team from BFHS). This Escape Room simulation, takes the students through a series of 10 decoding, puzzles, and locked boxes all with facts about the dangers of
tobacco and nicotine use to get to the final prize! Each group of 4-5 students are given a clue to start that talks about Bronchiolitis Obliterans (popcorn lung) being a disease that pops the little sacks in our lungs causing permanent scars…. and proceeds through the final challenge of the students making a poster of the facts they learned, before the other team that they are racing with. We have used these kits, that were provided through grant moneys, for the last 3 years and each year the students have a lot of fun with them and look forward to working with the High School students.
Here are some photos from our Vape Escapes:
